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Rotwang
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
C. A. Rotwang is a fictional character in Fritz Lang's seminal 1927 science fiction film Metropolis, and one of the prototypes of the mad scientist. Rotwang was played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge.
He is a brilliant but amoral inventor, whose greatest achievement is the creation of a robot made "in the image of man", although he gave it the form of a woman. He intended the robot to be a replacement for his deceased ex-wife, Hel, who left him for the now mayor of the city, Joh Frederson, and who died while giving birth to Frederson's son, Freder. Rotwang then uses the robot to get revenge against Frederson and Freder, while pretending that he is using the robot for the Fredersons' benefit.
In the shorter version of the film, edited for the American public, Rotwang intended to mass produce the robot to be used as a replacement for the workers in Metropolis. However, this is not the original storyline.
Rotwang was very influential in the iconography of the mad scientist archetype. His laboratory, with its profusion of Tesla coils and towering switch panels, became a stock feature of many later films, including many Frankenstein movies. Like Victor Frankenstein, he attempts to "play God" by creating life, only to be defeated and destroyed in the end by his own creation (and, indirectly, his own hubris).
He also wears a prosthetic hand, foreshadowing Anakin Skywalker from the Star Wars films, who is destroyed by his own attempts to resurrect a loved one (in this case, his wife, Padmé Amidala).